


Need Somebody to Understand

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Art in Fic, Budding Relationship, Coming Out, Confessions, Depression, Getting Help, M/M, Masturbation, Unresolved Sexual Tension, in the closet, racy pictures, text sex, thirsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 16:44:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20781818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: Three times Damian gets pictures he's supposed to and one time he does not.





	Need Somebody to Understand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youcantsaymylastname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcantsaymylastname/gifts).

> For JayDamiWeek2019 - Caught on Camera  
I've aged Damian up for this... I wanted to set it where I did in storyline but absolutely did not want Damian to be 13, so... let's say if Bendis can fuck with age, so can I~~ Damian's over 18.  
Listening to: Adam French - Slow Dancing (Acoustic)  
Art by the lovely youcantsaymylastname - you're the best and got me writing this finally!  
Beta: kate1zena

The first time is something of a heart-stopping experience. Damian's phone makes the little water drop sound that means he's gotten a text from someone he cares to answer. He's sitting in a respectable restaurant across from his father and the waiter has just poured their wine. Damian plucks the phone from his pocket and thumbs it open, clicking on his texts and the tiny thumbnail that shows Jason has sent him a photo. 

He assumes it's something to do with Jason's new dog. Why he named the beast _Dog_, Damian doesn't know, but really who the hell cares? He rescued Dog and it somehow means a lot to Damian that Jason's gotten so far. All Father sees is that Jason's taken over the Iceberg Lounge. He doesn't seem to see that in the process Jason is doing something good, that he's changing and healing. All he sees is a missing Penguin and Jason's guilt written in bullets and blood and Damian gets it, he does, but it also makes him wonder if he's really been forgiven for his own past or if he's just as shunned as Jason, only less trusted. He's heard the saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer too many times to think it doesn't apply to him, to any of them. 

He's so lost in his own thoughts that it takes him a moment to register the photo he's received. When he does it takes nearly every ounce of his composure to keep himself from shivering, right there in the middle of this restaurant. He wets his lips by pursing them and licking the insides, a subtle way to express everything that wants out. He resists the urge to let his breath become high and desperate and he doesn't squirm even though his body tries to tell him that's exactly what he's supposed to do when he's received such a shock of arousal to his system.

It isn't even anything raunchy. It's perfectly reasonable, an innocent pic of Jason in his signature suit for the Lounge. The red shirt opened at the top, vest gone as if he's tried to dress down and then had to dress back up, suit jacket perfectly in place. The tie that Damian wishes he hasn't had every dirty thought in the book about blessedly gone. He doesn't know what he'd do if Jason had left it looped around his neck, ends dangling, right there for the reaching...

He cuts himself off and forces his fingers into typing something. The first thing he types he has to fight a blush down as he backspaces it. 

_Do you ever manage not to be so damn attractive?_

The second thing is even worse and he has to take a deep breath to center himself and he notes his father watching him with interest.

_Always wear red. It does things to me._

He hurriedly backspaces that as well and simply types out, _Nice_, and sends it before he can overthink the single word. There's nothing wrong with saying 'nice' to a photo or at least he hopes to God there's not. Vaguely he wonders if Jason knows what he does to him or if he's somehow read his mind about how much he has always felt left out of Jason's selfie brigade. Dick had been getting them for years – of course he figures he hasn't since he's lost his memory and seemingly his phone. Tim, well he knows Tim was getting them before he left for college, he'd seen a fair amount by sheer virtue of location. Hell, even his father was receiving them, but never him. Not until now. 

_Now_. He swallows, studies the image one more time and then taps it to save it to his phone and pockets the device again before it becomes a bone of contention between him and his father on one of their rare moments out in public together. He smooths the napkin on his thigh and hooks his fingers around the stem of the wine glass and moves it toward himself, focusing on his father and the complete lack of conversation they were having. 

Some things never change... some things do.

The second time Damian gets a photo from Jason it's clearly a selfie. He half expects it when he opens the image that looks nothing like a dog in the preview thumbnail. Still it doesn't prepare him for what awaits. Not in the least. He's glad he's alone in his dorm room because the instant the image fills the screen, he visibly shivers and he swears that _wasn't_ a little mewl of pleasure that just left him. 

He studies the image in complete fascination, attention riveted completely and utterly on this little three by five image that has made his life feel like gravity just reversed. Jason's long leg and thick thigh are visible, his ridiculous Chucks showing. But for as much as Damian's thought of Jason's thighs, it's not them that captures his attention this time. It's Jason's stupid burner phone pointed at his _stupid_ crotch. It's the blatant line of attention drawn to exactly where Damian has been preventing himself from staring at the vast majority of his post-pubescent life. The bulge isn't obscene, it's not like Jason's _hard_ in the photo or something. It's just _there_. Right there under ridiculously toned abs, right above thighs that he'd once watched Tim type the word _thicc_ over. 

It takes everything in Damian's sense of control to keep himself from doing something dirty while looking at this photo. It can't possibly be the attention grab Damian thinks it is. Jason wouldn't send him pics that made him want to jerk off on purpose. Hell, he's pretty sure Jason doesn't even know his preferences. Dick used to, before he lost his memory, but he was the only one within the family. Jon and Colin knew, but that was beside the point. It's fairly usual for friends to know before family and he thinks he's gone above and beyond trying to hide it. He doesn't own porn, he doesn't look any up. He hasn't dated anyone and he thinks he keeps his eyes from wandering too far – at least further than is socially appropriate – and he's never made a comment about how hot someone is where anyone could hear him. Unless they can see into his thoughts, see the dirty things he imagines in the dead of the night, then he thinks he's managed not to give himself away.

But this image... it whispers otherwise. It breathes a quiet sigh in his ear and ignites a fire in his belly and he saves it with shaking fingers and this time he doesn't reply at all because he knows he can't keep himself from all but begging for more. He closes his eyes and hopes the world will leave him alone with this image for long enough to commit it to memory. He tries to recall every detail and he hopes when he lays down tonight it'll be with this image in his mind.

The third doesn't come for so long that Damian thinks perhaps his lack of reply has cut him off from receiving such things. He feels about as much regret as he does relief that he didn't out himself in some foolish bout of typing. He considers saying something to Jason to prompt him into sending another selfie. He thinks perhaps he can goad him into it if he tries hard enough. He sits and he types to Jason, paragraphs at a time, and he erases them all. 

He starts by telling him how hot the previous image is. He stares at the simple words and erases them and he gets bolder. It's a risky game he plays; one wrong click and it's all over for him and it sends his heart skittering in his chest. The next round of words is a confession. He watches the paragraphs form on the screen, sees them disappear off the little message pane, hidden in the darkness of beyond. He tells Jason how he's used the mentally burned image of his photograph, how he's gasped in the darkness, beneath his covers with the desperate desire that this photo has created inside him. 

He erases the words from the screen and begins anew, this time fear lodges itself in his throat and he tells Jason how he's hidden away all this time, tells him what he's afraid to tell his father and more afraid to tell the world. He pleads for understanding, for someone to confide in within the family. Family... Jason's family and yet Jason's the very object of Damian's desire and that spurs a new fit of typing, this one filled with anger and desperation. He speaks of confusion, of long hours spent boiling in his own self-hatred, of trying to decide if it's okay that he wants the man who is effectively his somewhat estranged step-brother. He bares his soul and he erases it all with a heavy heart and something that feels suspiciously like dampness on his cheeks. 

He puts his phone down and walks away. He takes a shower and comes back and stares at his phone as if it contains hazardous material and, really, it does. He sighs and curls up on the bed, still damp, the sheets sticking to his skin, and he unlocks it and his breath lodges in his throat. He feels like hell when his body responds in all the inappropriate ways and he chides himself for being such an easy mark. 

There's no text – there never is – only the image of Jason standing in his bathroom. The only light streams in from the window behind him and he's taken it in a partially dirty mirror. He's in low-slung sweat pants and a damn hoodie, open halfway down his chest. The stupid hood is up and Damian thinks Jason really needs to learn the difference between fashionable and not, though he privately wants to unzip that hoodie all the way down. He wants to press his mouth along behind his fingers and he – 

Shuddering hard, Damian erases his last confession post and types out something rude to cover all the things he's feeling. He sends it because it's protection and he tries not to regret it because he knows Jason's got thick skin. He's seen it and he's seen the blank look in his eyes while he takes it. 

_Slob selfies, really? It's not becoming._

He tips his head back and he tries not to break. It's getting harder to lie and harder to put up this front that he hates more than anything else in the world. He hates the person he thrusts out in front of himself as a shield and he wishes he were brave enough to make it stop. 

He hears the water drop sound and he doesn't look because he has no desire to see how deeply he's wounded someone he cares about. He pitches his phone on the bed next to him and drags himself up to get dressed and deal with the day.

He daydreams of a time where he can be honest with himself and with the world. He stands with his clothing in his hand and he closes his eyes and he tries to get himself back together while he feels like he's breaking inside. In the end, he plasters on the look he and his father have perfected and he goes about his life like he isn't dying inside. 

It's a lie, but it's a lie he's used to.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It's days before he can look at Jason's text. More come in and he dismisses the notifications without seeing more than an irrelevant word. He can't bring himself to see the pain he's caused in blatant letters. Yet, it's all he thinks about. It lives in his mind like a black seething mass of filth, worse than the atrocities of his past, and he feels it festering beneath his skin until he thinks he sees the ghosts of his past every time he looks in the mirror. He sees the bags under his eyes and he knows this path. He's trod upon it before and he knows exactly where it leads. He hates it, but he knows he deserves it, so he does nothing to stop it. 

It's the morning that he wakes up, a cold in his chest and a weariness in his veins that he knows he brought down upon himself that he finally opens Jason's thread. There's a pile of tissue beside him in bed and he feels like someone ran him over and left him for dead. He thinks he understands how people die of broken hearts. They give up and the world invades. He's given _in_ and the world has advanced. He hasn't given _up_ yet and he wonders what it would take to turn this into something more. He wonders if the words he sees will manage it. He opens the thread anyway.

_You know you like it._

The first text steals his breath away, rends him into a coughing fit that doesn't subside for a few seconds. He's lightheaded by the time it does and he blinks a few times to make sure his eyes aren't deceiving him.

The next text is from the following morning: _Breakfast before school? I'm in the area._ and a few hours later: _Guess not. Have a day._

It's Jason's passive aggressive nature that leads him to rarely say have a _good_ day and Damian knows it, but it still feels like a kick to his already bruised conscience if he's being honest. He sits with it for a minute, refuses to read anything more while he wallows in how this feels and how much he deserves it. He knows he's catastrophizing. Tim told him once a long time ago that it's a sign of both anxiety and depression. For Tim, it had been both. For Damian, he doesn't know. He hasn't gone to therapy, doesn't know how he would even begin to be honest enough for it to help and the thought of telling Leslie makes his skin crawl. Dinah... he could stomach it if someone would only offer it. He won't ask though, he can't. 

The rattle in his chest brings him back to the present and he takes a wheezy breath and hacks up half a lung before continuing down the thread from Jason. 

_Hey punk..._

The message is from two days ago and there's a string of messages after it and Damian somehow knows what's coming. He's never been on the receiving end of it, but he's watched it happen to Tim's phone. Hell, he's seen the messages his father ignores. He's seen the concern and he's always been jealous no one has ever cared that much for him. He feels both placated and horrible that it's his turn now.

_For real, you okay? You never go this long without being a damn brat._

Jason protecting himself while reaching out. It strikes him just how similar they are and he sits with it for a second, lets it sink in before he keeps scrolling. 

_Alright, I gave you seven hours to reply. I tracked your phone. You're at school and on the move, so you're not dead. Did you block me or some shit? Christ, for a bad selfie? Get over yourself._

Lashing out, Damian knows it better than he wants to admit. He does it all the time. It covers hurt and dejection and all the sour things that boil in his stomach and probably in every human being on this planet. He slumps against the wall and forces himself to read the rest in one go.

_You didn't, I checked. Which means you're just ignoring me. But not anyone else. Yeah, I snooped, sue me. I didn't read the messages, just saw their threads are read and mine isn't. What the fuck did I do to you that's got your panties in a twist?_

Not twenty minutes and another message. _You know, fuck it, I don't care. I thought I'd include you. Tim said... never mind. Leave him out of this. Just thought you'd like being included, but excuse me for trying. Back to before, it is. I'll stop sending things, just... god, tell me you're okay at least._

And this morning: Look, I know you're okay when you lash out. You're not even doing that and honestly, I'm worried. I know I'm not the best at this and trust me, I get not wanting to share. I hate sharing. I hate being vulnerable and I hate people really seeing who I am. This is me letting you in if you'll just let ME in. I'm worried. I started sending the pics because you were withdrawing and the last person I saw do that... let's say it didn't end well. Or rather, it ended. Forever. Just... it doesn't have to be me, but talk to someone, okay?

Damian sits with that for a minute, with the knowledge that Jason was worried, that he _saw_ him and he has identified the truth of something Damian had only begun to fragilely let in himself. He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall for a minute, lets himself think before reacting. He gives in with a deep breath. His fingers fly across the keys as he rips himself out of the protective shell he's been living in and he bares the truth of it all to Jason.

_I protect myself with harsh words. I lash out when I feel things I don't know how to deal with. I hide behind a mask of rudeness and social ineptness and then I feel like shit over what I've done. I build walls and refuse to break them down and when someone else does, I just put up a bigger one between me and them. You got inside and I shoved you back out when the truth is, I need someone inside. Grayson used to be there for me. I could tell him anything, could confess my worst fears and my deepest secrets, and now he doesn't even know who I am. No one knows who I am._

He hits send and holds his phone so tightly the case creaks with flexing plastic and he has to force himself to ease up before he breaks it. He watches the little bubbles of Jason typing appear and then the message slips onto his screen.

_Then tell me who you are._

Damian swallows down his dread, his immediate reaction of trying to run away. He puts his phone down and blows his nose again and flounders in his misery before picking it back up and starting to type, sending the messages off in chunks.

_On the inside, I'm broken. I regret my past and sometimes I don't know how to deal with it. I feel as though Father keeps me close just to watch me rather than because I'm his son. He's cold and distant and the things we do together are illusions instead of truths. Our relationship is professional, not familial. Grayson... he was my family. He was more of a father to me than my own has ever been. He took me in, gave me a second chance, he showed me I had a heart and how to use it, and now, he has no idea who I am. He rejected me in the hospital as though I never mattered and when I reached out again he got rid of his phone._

His breath is shaky and his hands tremble and he feels vulnerability like a creeping sickness in his gut. Still, he plunges onward.

_I have a million secrets and all of them are buried so deep I'm not sure I can ever unearth them all. I don't know if I'm depressed or anxious or something else entirely, but I'm something. I feel like I'm falling and the spiral is too big to get out of and sometimes when I'm all alone and the shower's on, I let myself cry because it’s the only thing that takes this crushing feeling away. I'm lonely. Alone and scared of what the future does and doesn't hold. I run from my past and I'm too afraid to go toward my future but both are the only things I can think of. I can't be honest about who I am._

He sends it and he has to hold his breath to type the next part, has to do it fast before he chickens out and erases it all.

_I feel things I shouldn't for people I shouldn't. I feel shame for that and yet cling to it because it's connection and I so desperately need it. Then I push it away because what I'm doing is wrong and I know it and I know they'd hate me if they knew, so I just make them hate me first before they find out, so it's a lesser version of hate. So I'm still safe._

It's a coughing fit that makes him breathe again and he sits with both hands on the bed, his phone lost in the sheets while he tries to stop being dizzy. He sags against the wall and holds one hand up in front of his face, focuses until the vertigo subsides and then retrieves his phone and simply types: _I'm gay. I think I'm a little demi and yet... not and I don't know how to define that. I'm between everything and there's no one left to talk to that I can tell all of the truth. I'm unhappy and sometimes okay and sometimes better than that and yet those days don't seem to matter so much in the end. I'm putting one foot in front of the other because it's required, not because I want to. It comes and it goes and it feels fake because it's not a constant and I feel like a sham._

He stops typing after that because he's run out. Run out of energy, run out of words, run out of will. He sits and he sniffles and he wonders if he's said too much for so long that he actually jumps when there's a knock on the dorm room door. He squints at the door and drags his sorry ass out of bed. Maybe he's finally being thrust a roommate no matter how much cash he dropped on the dean to make him give him a room to himself. 

There's no peephole on the door and he hates that about these dorms, has been determined to fix it one day. He'll do it his damn self if he has to. Fix the whole building. Yanking it open, he has to blink at Jason a few times before getting his wits about him enough to invite him in by simply stepping back and standing there. 

Jason skirts past him and comes in, glancing around and then sighing, dragging Damian's chair out from his desk and situating it next to the bed, gesturing at it and waiting patiently until Damian gets his ass in gear and closes the door and drags himself back to bed. He settles in his piles of tissues and finds his phone in the folds of the sheets and tosses it on his pillow, just waiting on whatever hell this will be for being so honest.

"You shouldn't be alone right now." Jason settles his arms on the back of the chair he's chosen to straddle and gazes around the room. "You're depressed. I had to see it to know for sure, but... shit, man. You're living in squalor. It smells in here, there's dishes stacked all over, the trash is old enough I'm pretty sure I know where the smell's coming from and on top of it you're sick. How many times have you been sick in your life?"

Damian shrugs and Jason holds up three fingers. "Three times I'm aware of and all of them were because you pushed yourself too much. You have the damn immune system of a god. You haven't been on patrol in weeks. I messaged Tim and B and neither have heard from you for over a week. I wasn't the only one you cut out. Jon and Colin have heard from you, but it's been superficial, a few words, nothing of substance. Your brain... it tries to cut you off when depression comes in. It tells you all the lies: that you're not worth it; that no one cares anyway. But it's lying to you." The chair creaks as Jason shifts, shakes his head. "Look, I'll suck it up and we can go to Dinah together. She knows how to keep her damn mouth shut to the rest of the world, won't even tell Ollie about the shit anyone says in there. I've considered going before but haven't found the proper motivation... well, I found it now. I'm not losing anyone else, okay?"

Damian collapses in on himself, huddles against the wall and tries to care that his cheeks are wet again and that Jason can see him here. He waits on judgement and when it doesn't come, he feels something loosen inside him. He just nods and tries to find words to say anything out loud at all. He can't and Jason seems to understand. He gets up and points at the bathroom. "Shower. Leave the door open for my peace of mind. I'm going to fix the trash before I gag on it."

Damian drags himself out of bed and toward the bathroom. He's slow to get his clothing off and slower still to get under the water. He stands there for what feels like forever before he finally starts washing. When he gets out there's an outfit on top of the toilet lid and the floor and counter are clean and he wonders how the hell he's lost this much touch with reality so quickly. He wonders if he's pitched himself into this because of a damn text. He knows he hasn't. It's like Tim once told him, that sometimes it's the dumbest thing that tips you over the edge and leaves you falling into the never ending abyss. He's seen Tim at his lowest, found him in the bathroom floor, pale and shaking with tears that wouldn't stop and air that wouldn't come. He's seen the medications and he's seen Tim without them and he knows that, for some people, medication is definitely the answer. Tim is one of them. 

He shaves because he can see himself in the mirror. Because he knows Jason's in his room somewhere. He combs his hair and spikes it because it feels pointless to have shaved if he doesn't do this, too. He brushes his teeth because his mouth tastes vile and he takes some sinus pills because his nose is red and he still feels like fresh shit. 

He walks out into a new world and he wonders just how long he was in there. His once tight black jeans are loose and his tightest t-shirt is only a little snug and it's like Jason knew. His hands wander his own body while he stares at the three trash bags by the door, the neat piles of dishes and the ones soaking in the sink. There's a mug of tea on the small table he uses for eating and an energy bar, probably because that's all he has left that's not ruined at this point. He hasn't been for groceries for longer than he's willing to admit. 

"Groceries are coming. I took the liberty of ordering them. Also, I'm not leaving, so I'm having Alfred drop by a cot and I'm taking that corner of your living room." He gestures and Damian sees where Jason's moved his TV off to the side and there's a space just big enough for a cot. He sits and opens his energy bar and doesn't argue. He tries to think of anything to say, tries to say thank you or why or how did you know, but none of it comes up. 

He sits and eats and he thanks everything he can that Jason has come for him. 

\-----

It's weeks before he feels like he's come to the surface and when he does it's with relief that he finds himself sitting with Jason on the floor going over his Civics homework. He puts his pencil down and he takes a breath that feels incredibly different from all the ones before it. He feels Jason watching him and he braves everything at once. 

"Do we have an appointment with Dinah?"

"Standing one, yeah. Are you ready?"

Damian nods and Jason fishes his phone out of the sea of papers around them and sends off a text. His phone pings a second later and he pockets it. "Three tomorrow. Both of us if you're okay with that. If not, one and then the other."

"Both." Damian's quiet for a minute and then sighs, looks up at the ceiling and steels himself. "Will you judge me?"

"I could ask you the same thing. We're about to go tell her all our secrets, even the dark ones. Assuming we're going to be honest."

Damian nods. "I murdered people. Like a lot of them."

"And I haven't?"

"I hide my feelings and a lot of them are... bitter."

"Trust me, I understand that more than you know. You'll see."

"I'm gay and that's not going to stay out of it. It's... a lot of my shit stems from not being able to be honest about who I am."

Jason picks up one of the pens from the floor and twirls it between his fingers, gaze on it instead of Damian and Damian takes it for what it is: privacy while they talk. He appreciates it more than he can express. "You realize I'm perfectly okay with that, right? Not like I have room to judge anyone."

Damian stares at the pen as it twirls, chews lightly on his tongue until he manages to find his words again. "How so?"

"Roy." Jason says it with something that equates to pain and Damian's heart sinks as he realizes what he thinks Jason means.

"You were with him..." he lets it hang out there and the way Jason swallows tells him the truth of it. 

"Only kind of. It wasn't anything official, but over the years we definitely had a _thing_." 

Damian carefully sorts through the memories of Jason he has stored away. He sees the way he's different around Roy and then the way he has the same look a few times with other people – mostly women. He makes a mental leap and files away the information that Jason's at least bi, if not pan. He feels something like relief in his very core and he stands, stepping over text books and papers, puts his hand on Jason's shoulder and squeezes as he passes him by. He stops in the kitchen area and opens cabinets until he finds the chips Jason had delivered with the other groceries this week and takes two sodas from the fridge before coming back to plop down and passes one to Jason, opening the bag and putting it between them. He doesn't usually snack, hates the very idea of it, but today seems to call for things out of the ordinary.

They sit and crunch for a while, neither talking until Damian finally clears his throat and offers, "I don't know why I spiraled when I did. Tim says for him it's always just kind of out of nowhere, a tiny thing that shoves him over the edge. Nothing was different in my feelings than usual. Well... not far from the usual anyway. Maybe amplified but not on a negative emotion?"

"Doesn't have to be," Jason murmurs, somewhat absently. He takes a breath and leans toward Damian and it's achingly obvious he's still hanging on the past.

Damian longs to take it away, wants to make this look go away no matter what it takes, no matter what he has to give up to make it okay. His hands shake so he shoves them down in his lap, pressing until it stops. "Can I be blunt about the things I used to speak to Grayson about?"

"Of course you can. I'd hope the same applies on the opposite."

Damian nods, wishes he could do this without feeling like he's going to pass out. "My sexuality confuses me. Maybe because I don't let it exist. I just... are you _sure_ this is okay? It's just... a lot."

"Stuff like this doesn't bother me. Not much does anymore."

Damian bows his head, stares at where his toes are half buried in it. He flexes his toes and steels himself. "It's weird I guess," his voice is small, smaller than he can remember it being since he was a kid in a wheelchair who was losing hope. "I don't feel a lot for people I know, sexually I mean. There's an exception, but it's just one person. But I do masturbate and I watch porn and I get excited like how I suppose anyone else does. Just not for people I know... mostly. I don't know what that makes me except not normal."

"Don't say that." Jason sounds sad and Damian has to resist looking up at him. "Normal is a construct. Your own words, kid. Live it."

It should make Damian annoyed to hear _kid_ tossed at him, but it doesn't. Mostly he just feels resigned. "Okay... still, it's... not the usual I guess is what I mean."

"Who makes up the rules about what's usual? How many people do you think are hiding things from themselves or from others? We make up this status quo and then try to live up to it, it's fucking stupid. Whatever you are, you're you. Just like I'm me. If you want a name for it, I'm sure Dinah can help you put one on it, but don't feel obligated to name it either. Just... be you."

Damian makes a frustrated noise, tips his head up to stare at the ceiling. "I just want to make sense of it, that's all. I feel _a lot_ for this one person, have for a while now. I think about them all the time, fantasize every chance I get. I'm also pretty certain they'd hate me if they knew and that keeps me on my toes, trying to make sure I don't give myself away. I know it's not right to want them, but I can't stop either."

"You're allowed to want another guy, it's not like it's illegal in our country. Even if it was, you'd still be allowed your feelings."

Damian sighs, digs his toes further into the carpeting and hunches in on himself. "Not because he's a guy." Damian realizes the corner he's backed himself into before Jason asks, "Then why?" He sits, utterly petrified, until Jason lightly touches his shin, hand warm against his cool skin. "You don't have to say anything you don't want to."

Damian stares at Jason's hand, memorizes the feeling of him there in such detail that his body flares with heat, and he finally, reluctantly pulls away, getting up to go stand by the window, looking out over the quad. "Society wouldn't understand."

"Why?" Jason's voice is gentle, carving an aching swath in Damian's chest. He closes his eyes against what he knows is his fate and tries to steel his heart against the shattering he knows is about to happen.

"It's you, okay?"

Jason's quiet for long enough Damian closes his eyes and has to fight against the desire to just give in and cry regardless of being seen. After all, it can't get worse than it already is, of that he's certain.

Jason's presence behind him makes his muscles tighten, everything in him prepare for a fight and it's only the hesitation in Jason's fingertips on his shoulder that makes him not come around swinging. When he doesn't lash out, Jason's fingers slowly glide over his arm and his warmth is close enough to feel though there's no solid touch between the rest of them.

"I don't hate you." Jason's fingers travel the length of Damian's arm, capture his own and Damian sags into the touch when the warmth of Jason's lips grazes his knuckles. "I'm not related to you, not really." His breath whispers over Damian's fingers and it sends a pointed ache deep into Damian's gut. "Tell me... do you still want what you did or is it gone now that I'm within reach?"

Damian's heart lurches in his chest and arousal kicks in his gut at the words _within reach_. He shivers violently enough Jason's breath is half a laugh across his fingers. 

"Say it."

"I still want you."

Jason's hand releases his and a second later it's cupping his cheek, sliding down to span over the side of his neck, caressing and Damian feels like he can't possibly breathe. He leans into Jason's body and it feels like the safety he's been seeking all this time. It feels like he used to dream being away from his mother and grandfather would feel like. 

Damian lets Jason turn him away from the window, allows him to bracket him in against the wall, and he tips his head up into it when Jason leans in to kiss him. Their lips are a whisper against one another, the barest hints of contact, and Damian's desire hums in his veins, sings to him a soaring song of need. He chases Jason's lips even though they hardly parted by an inch and he reaches up to fist his hands in Jason's hair and he holds on for dear life as they kiss like they mean it. Every press of lips lifts Damian higher and every glide of their tongues produces another sound from somewhere deep inside him. He trembles with the weight of his arousal and he clings to Jason like he's certain he will evaporate if he lets go.

It's with effort that Jason parts them and when he does, it's only to press Damian's smaller frame to his chest, to hold him there and Damian burrows in like it's the safest place he's ever been, clings to Jason's shirt with his mind entirely blown and his world upside down, and he knows they need to talk about this, knows there's a lot they need to work out and say and yet... he just wants to live here for a while. Here in the hollow of Jason's chest where everything's easy and alright and where his dreams are reality and he feels alive again for the first time in years.

\----------

The fourth time Damian gets a picture it's late at night and Jason hasn't been in his dorm for over a week. They've both been to therapy and they've both confessed their truths to Dinah. Damian's working on getting an appointment with Leslie to work on medication and he's seen Jason's truth wide open in all its agony. He's not sure where they are with _them_ but he knows they'll be better for whatever's happening, no matter how it ends. 

He thinks at first that it's another of Jason's reminder texts. Remember to shower. How was breakfast? How was class today? Remember to order groceries. How was patrol tonight? It's the small things that have forced him back on track, the tiny reminders that someone's watching and someone cares. It wasn't enough Wednesday, but it was all the days before it and it was today. 

He opens it expecting yet another picture of Dog – something Jason's been sending nearly daily – and he nearly drops his phone when he sees what it actually is. He rolls onto his side and saves the photo like it's going to go away if he doesn't do it quickly. He stares at it, covering his whole screen and he tries to breathe and he thinks he once knew what oxygen was and wonders if he'll ever find out again. He's lightheaded with how quickly his blood is rushing elsewhere and he doesn't bother to stop himself from shoving his hand under his covers and right down inside his briefs. 

It's with the smallest of gasps that he starts stroking, his hand tightening on his phone case and all he can do is feel helplessly lost in what he's seeing. 

Jason's laid out on the bed and he's clearly not wearing a single stitch of clothing despite the strategically placed sheet right over his junk. But the rest of him is on glorious display. Damian's eyes trace down the abs he's spent hours in the past drooling over down to the glorious V that makes Damian shiver. The faintest of treasure trails plunges down to the hint of pubic hair beyond the covers and then those thighs. _Fuck_. Damian's hips buck, his hand moving faster. He doesn't even care if this wasn't for him, doesn't care what anyone thinks. His toes dig into the fabric of his bed and he stops breathing so he doesn't get too loud. He remembers the word thicc and he moans anyway. He closes his eyes and holds the phone to his chest as if he could pull Jason through the phone and right on top of him if he only wants it desperately enough.

His phone makes a soft water drop noise and he lifts it shakily, wishing he'd finished already for fear of a wrongly delivered message. 

_Did I kill you?_

Damian gasps out a laugh and lets go of his cock long enough to thumb out, _Not dead, but if I died right now I would die happy._

_Care to share how happy?_

Damian thinks he may actually die now. He shudders and if he'd been touching himself, he knows he would have cum from that line alone. His thighs burn with arousal and he can't help it when he pushes everything down and then tries to artfully tug the sheet back up over his very aroused body. It looks comical instead of artful, but he's not sure he cares as he flexes his abs and thighs and snaps a picture to send back. He hesitates before sending it and then decides _fuck it_ and lets it free in Jason's direction.

Jason sends back three fire emojis and one eggplant and Damian chokes out a laugh, shivers and reopens Jason's picture, shoves his hand back under the sheet and jacks himself as quickly as he dares. It doesn't take long – after all it's his first time doing this with anybody – and he shoves the sheet out of the way to arch and paint his abdomen with his pleasure. He's shaking by the time he's done and he has to forcibly relax his muscles before doing the most impulsive thing he's ever done and taking a picture of the aftermath. He sends it to Jason without hesitation and he lays there and waits on the verdict.

When it comes, he actually whines, the sheer level of hotness making him nearly mad with desire despite having just cum. Jason's hand is covering the part of his cock that would have been out of the sheets and his belly is streaked with cum, the rest flowing down over his fingers. Damian thinks of licking it clean, of sucking more of it directly from the source and he doesn't bother to be modest as he types out, _Makes me want so many things_.

_Trust me, you've lit a fire here, too._

Damian squirms, wishes he could come again so soon and he carefully saves Jason's picture, sends it to his private account just in case and he uses a wad of tissues to clean himself and squirms out of his briefs, kicking them to the floor. He types out _See you tomorrow?_ with one hand and smiles when the answer is a thumb's up emoji. 

He closes his eyes and he thinks: at least somebody understands.


End file.
